03/27/2012

GIs in alleged plot to kill for the Zetas

A U.S. Army first lieutenant and a sergeant are among six people busted over the weekend in a plot to hire themselves out to Los Zetas to kill rival gangsters and provide tactical training.

It’s one thing for Zetas to poach Mexican soldiers. It’s another to get training from renegade U.S. soldiers.

According to a statement by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Laredo, Texas, Army 1st Lt. Kevin Corley “offered to provide tactical training for cartel members and to purchase weapons for the cartel under his name.”

Unfortunately for Corley, the people he was dealing with were undercover DEA agents. Corley, the statement says, “mailed an Army tactics battle book to the agents, thoroughly explained military tactics and told undercover agents he could train 40 cartel members in two weeks.”

He later allegedly agreed to “wet work,” or murder-for-hire, and helped arrange transport of 500 pounds of marijuana from Texas to South Carolina.

Earlier this month, Corley met again with the men he thought were Zetas and showed some excitement at the brutality they seemed to want from him against a particular rival:

"Corley allegedly stated he had purchased a new Ka-Bar knife to carve a 'Z' into the victim's chest and was planning on buying a hatchet to dismember the body," prosecutors said in the statement.